For those of you who like the Simpsons.

The Internet - shit or not? Discuss.

I have a couple of old PCs around the house and could use some extra money so I wish I'd thought of this myself. For that price I have not found a reason to buy it, but hey what do I know?

Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music (v2.0) was blogged on memepool first, but since it's really, really good, I wanted to bring it to the attention of a narrower audience ...

Sure, it's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it.

Beware the many fighting styles of Rummy.

Well, speaking of marketing, er... LYING, consider the current debate raging at Starbucks, wherein a "tall" cup of coffee, really means "small".

So - how does this work? You get in and he says "Where from, Guv?" Does he have to pay you, at the beginning of the trip?

Marketing, in its broadest sense, has been pithily defined as "meeting needs, profitably". This stands in stark contrast to most people's (mis-)understanding of marketing as synonymous with advertising, when in truth, this is merely synecdoche, and advertising is in many cases simply the most obvious outward indication that there is a marketing plan at work behind the scenes.

Personally, I have been fascinated by advertising for years - certainly since I first attended a version of the London International Advertising Awards that was open to the public in my early teens - and in marketing as a discipline since I read the widely-despised (by the Apple faithful, anyway) John Sculley's "Odyssey". (These days, you're more likely to find me reading the excellent Kotler, but Odyssey was what clued me in)

So, when I got the opportunity to make the transition from technical pre-sales to marketing, I jumped at the chance, and now that I've been paddling in the shallow end of marketing for a while, I've decided I'd like to wade out a little further, maybe do a little snorkelling, that sort of thing.

Why has this all fascinated me for so long and why do I bring this up now? Well this article in Salon that I was recently able to I recently managed to StumbleUpon! confirmed what I had long suspected - that marketing in general, and advertising in particular, are all about messing with people's heads.

Chavs (not to be confused with chuds)

I saw a bumper sticker the other day for "Master Bait and Tackle" which fellow reprobate Jason pointed out sounded like an unusual football tactic (though quite fitting, given American football's status as America's most homoerotic sport, but I digress. As usual.) However, it appears to be a legitimate business.

Oh, there's just so many places I could go with this.

I'm reading this article on BBC News about brain fingerprinting (funny, I didn't think brains had fingers, but then, I once thought the same about fish), and there's a link to the AAAS web page.

So, wanting to know more about the controversial topic, I enter "brain fingerprinting" into the search field and hit search ...

I am rewarded not with more information about BFing but instead learn that the AAAS web site's search engine is called SWISH-E, and that there has been a "Swish error: the index file format is unknown". Swish. Hmm. So anyway, the other gem is that my query (which consisted, remember of just the words "brain fingerprinting") has been thoughtfully re-written by the Swisher to read "brain and fingerprinting". Hit the search button again, and the same "index file format" error is there (remarkably, hitting the search button again didn't fix the problem ;-) and my query has now been re-written as "brain and and and fingerprinting". Hit it again, and the search term becomes "brain and and and and and and and fingerprinting", and so on ...

This provided me with hours of pleasure. So much so, in fact, that I completely forgot about BFing and Swish-E and all I cared about was seeing how long I could get the search string ...

"brain and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and fingerprinting"

So now maybe 5:30pm on the Friday before Valentine's Day is a little late to be posting a useful Valentine's resource like this, but then again ... if you're reading this blog in search of inspiration for Valentine's, you need all the help you can get, my friend ...

By the way, can you guess which is my favorite? Put your guess in a comment, and I'll let you know if you get it right. Yay!

I never did that well in my bowling league and I'm about done with my welding equipment. So how can I combine those two interests into something new, cool and most importantly, destructive? Oh, here's an idea. Ken, are you thinking what I'm thinking?

Looks like the alleged Windows source code leak has been confirmed. Incidentally, if the first link doesn't work, ie because the site is so overloaded it's crashed, don't be alarmed, it's just what we call the Reprobates effect.

"Given how hard it all is to start with, I really don't see why they have to go and complicate things more with a bunch of dials, buttons, lights, and levers".

Just when you thought school science curricumlum was safe, Ohio goes stupid.

In the fight against terrorists security forces have tried all sorts of things: concrete, steel, razor wire, guns, checkpoints, walls, moats, armed guards, metal detectors, etc. Leave it to the Israelis to come up with something new and innovative and purely f'ing brilliant.

Good thing this guy was wearing a c(r)ash helmet ...

I'd been wondering how long it would take for someone to offer this in a simple, clean desktop package. Now I know. (and here's how it was done)

I like to think I'm a sympathetic guy and when I see a chance to help my fellow human I'll like to do so. Still, it's clearly possible to go overboard. For example, how much would you pay for condiments to help someone who claims to be starving? Don't answer yet. You also get plastic utensils: a fork, a straw, and a knife. Now how much would you pay? But wait, there's more. Bid now and you'll also get a fortune cookie. Yes! A fortune cookie. Don't wait! Operators are standing by. (thanks to my new friend MB for the link.)

Only in Australia.

It's not that this bulletin is that exciting. Just another Microsoft security hole. What makes this fun is the song parody a quarter of the way through the article.

Call your lawyers! Trucks are moving all over the place and one could hurt you!

Try using some of these on your next conference call.

Interesting. Late last year, the Pentagon apparently got itself into a tizzy over the proposed name for a new class of Navy vessel - the "Sea Blade" - fearing it sounded too "gay" and ordered a change. Couldn't have helped, I suppose, that DC's best-known gay newspaper is, of course, the Washington Blade, and Navy types are well-known for being, well, a bunch of fags.

Seems, however, that the Army has no such qualms over the naming of its newest vehicle, choosing to name it, as it has, after this guy.

I thought the name for this disease was ADHD...

It's bad enough that the airlines treat you like cattle. It is bad enough that, if they serve you food at all, it is total crap. It is bad enough that they are smug when they lose your luggage.

However, this is far worse. I'm sure our no-talent ass-clown president would be thrilled that this kind of behavior...

News flash: Religious zealot barricades self in cockpit of American Airlines flight, starts proseletyzing and haranguing passengers. Why didn't the pilot do something to stop this? Ah, because he was the pilot.

Damn, this sure makes me miss The Gong Show.

We're all familiar with error 404. Looks like these guys need to create an error 11 in honor of some "friends" of ours.

This is the most disturbing thing I have read in a long time:

"Although the second head is only partially developed, its mouth moves when Rebeca is being breast-fed. "

Here's the article.

Mac users are known for being a particularly dedicated group of fans but stories like this one clearly indicate that some are waaaaay off balance.

I've heard of putting lipstick on a pig, but this is just ridiculous.

I think this innovation, as reported in the Onion, has actually been in use for years in the computer industry, powering Windows. Think about it. It explains a lot.

Suuuuure this was the result of an "electrical fault". More likely a "digestive fault".

Pavos Zavos Shmavos

Slippery slope theory: Boards of Canada are a gateway band. A gateway to harder stuff. Like Múm and Sigur Rós. And listening to Sigur Rós can only lead to one thing: listening to Mieskuoro Huutajat. At that point, my friend, it's all over.

Nerds should never ever be allowed to name children. Otherwise you end up with things like this.

Finally, a comprehensive guide to farts.